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Open Source Intelligence
Posted by
michael
on Tue Mar 05, 2002 10:49 AM
from the nothing-to-do-with-source-code dept.
from the nothing-to-do-with-source-code dept.
Artifice_Eternity writes: "Time magazine is running a story highlighting the US government's neglect of open source intelligence, or OSINT. OSINT includes stuff on the Internet and in various newspapers and periodicals, as well as "gray literature" (limited-availability publications like dissertations, local phone directories, etc.). It also includes foreign-language experts, and commercial data (satellite maps, news archives, scientific research). The mass of data to be crunched indicates how intelligence is an information processing problem in today's world."
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Well (Score:3, Informative)
Reading webboards for fun and investigation (Score:2)
I've wondered who gets the task of monitoring this stuff. Can you imagine what it must be like to have your job being to read Slashot? (officially, I mean, not counting all the people who make it their job de facto ...)
Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org) [sethf.com]
Re:Reading webboards for fun and investigation (Score:3, Insightful)
I was about to say "pretty fucking cool" when I realized that anyone using /. to communicate covertly would likely troll, get automodded to -1, and then communicate at low bandwidth using various ASCII penis birds as steganography.
The poor bastard probably has to read at -2 all the time.
On the other hand, it's probably a great incentive to develop steganography-detection tools and pattern-recognition software. There'd be no other way to read /. at -2 and remain sane.
well... (Score:2, Insightful)
Neither Open Source nor Intelligent (Score:3, Interesting)
This is quite funny on two levels:
- It's a lot of "take" and not much "give" on an international level, i.e. not at all open source (unless you take Microsoft's use of BSD code as "open source")
- It's extremely US centric
The second point is forgivable in itself, seeing as he's an ex-spook, and it's an article aimed at improving the US's intelligence. But what's with the open source phrase? How can the rest of the world make use of it? (hint for the easily amused - read "America" and "U.S." as "Microsoft", and "Open Source" as "Embrace and Extend")Non-Governmental Organization Data Warehouse ($10M) to provide free storage and network access to the various international organizations whose "local knowledge" is vital to U.S. understanding.
Regional Open Source Information Networks for Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America ($40M) , each with an open source collection and processing center in partnership with local governments who will provide regional language skills and access to gray literature and local experts.
What makes him think that these places - some of the poor and rebellious even internally - will co-operate with the US in matters of security? He's not even suggesting bipartisan sharing, which doesn't even approach what true open-source would be.
The closest he gets to saying that this idea will be truly "open source" is an immediate increase in open source information sharing across the departments and with the private sector; and finally, the provision of a foundation for a web-based OSINT exchange with allies, other nations and international groups, in other words it's only open source if you're in the clique. A bit like any major software company we could name...
And what's this?
Digital Marshall Plan ($20M) to provide direct assistance and subsidies to extend the Internet to every corner of the world (including rural areas in America) via wireless delivery means.
This is another example of how US-centric his ideas are - the most remote corner of the world he can think of is "rural areas in America"...
This is clearly an example of some hyper-patriot using buzzwords and buzzconcepts to expand his country's control over scant international resources (intelligence analyses) without really understanding the international environment, or indeed without really understanding the terms he's using. Open source? Not likely. Open (to him) intelligence sources, closed (to everyone else) information.
Re:Neither Open Source nor Intelligent (Score:3, Informative)
An example- The US military is constantly preparing for a potential war in Korea. This involves updating our intelligence picture of the korean peninsula. WE use closed sources(classified sattelites, spy planes, Jame Bond type ops) and open sources(New reports, public speeches, publicly availabble maps, etc... even books). Open source intelligence is simply that information about a potential issue that is publicly available.
Re:Neither Open Source nor Intelligent (Score:2, Informative)
*sigh*
"Open Source" in this context means that it is publicly available -- it has absolutely nothing to do with Open Source software.
Re:Neither Open Source nor Intelligent (Score:4, Insightful)
And while I agree that it's US centric, I think you are blowing that issue out of proportion. It's written for an American audience, and like I said, it makes no pretense that such projects have high-minded philisophical goals, beyond perhaps sharing some of the agglomeration of "open source intelligence" with the public or other friendly nations.
Parent
Re:Neither Open Source nor Intelligent (Score:2, Insightful)
This is why US intelligence gathering has failed, obviously it is a lot easier to penetrate the US with guerrilla tactics then it is for the US to penetrate 3rd world countries with billion dollar budgets.
Non-State Actors? (Score:2)
"[...] paying more than $30 billion a year for a national intelligence and counterintelligence community to protect it from both traditional state-based threats and unconventional non-state actors, the events of 9-11 demonstrated our inability to detect and prevent bold asymmetric attacks [...]"
Non-state ACTORS , huh? Hmmm... I can definitely think of some actors that could be of a real and present danger to the US - most of whom are imports from our friends to the north, Canada!
And for those of you who appreciate long and confusing acronym's, try this one on for size: The Open Source Intelligence International Non-State Actors Watch List, or as its friends call it - the OSINT INSAWL....
Jargon term (Score:2)
Open Source Intelligence? (Score:4, Insightful)
I think this is carrying the "open source" moniker a bit too far.
What we're talking about is simply publicly available information.
This guy is advocating gathering it and sifting it for useful nuggets of intelligence, a goal with which I agree.Re:Open Source Intelligence? (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:Open Source Intelligence? (Score:3, Informative)
You're right. Open source intelligence, also known as OSINT, has been around since at least the 1930's.
Here's more information [oss.net].
Open Source != Open Source (Score:4, Informative)
To the intelligence community, something like Time Magazine is an open source of information. Open, because everyone can have it.
A phone tap, classified information from another agency, a spy, etc are closed sources of information.
This does not mean that they are reading Slashdot, or reviewing the Linux source code. (I'm sure 'they' ARE, but thats not what this term means...)
Re:Open Source != Open Source (Score:2)
I was wondering if this article got posted simply because of that confusion...
Chinese embassy (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Chinese embassy (Score:2, Insightful)
Elements within the CIA may have deliberately targeted the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, without NATO approval, because it was serving as a rebroadcast station for the Yugoslavian army. The London Observer and Copenhagen's Politiken reported that, according to senior U.S. and European military sources, NATO knew very well where the Chinese embassy was located and listed it as a "strictly prohibited target" at the beginning of the war.
Clancy's views (Score:2)
Re:Clancy's views (Score:2)
Clancy is a smart man, and understands how the military works. His book Marine, was one of the best books explaining how Marines think and fight from a non marine. There were a few humorous misunderstandings, but for someone who hasn't gone through several years of training and service with the US MArines, was surprisingly accurate. I'm not surprised that he gets things right in his fiction...
How to get plenty of OSINT (Score:2)
The US Government should change copyright policy to require electronic deposition. If every copyrighted work was available in data form via the Library Of Congress, OSINT would be a lot simplier and cheaper. Copyright interests would not like it much, but compared to the damage done to civil liberties so far in the aftermath of 9/11, it's a small sacrifice.
No Open Lit. Analysis (Score:2)
Re:No Open Lit. Analysis (Score:2)
OK (Score:2)
Interesting premise, but realisable? (Score:5, Interesting)
Unfortunately, our spies and our satellites have lost touch with reality, for they collect less than 10% of the relevant information that we must digest to understand the complex multi-cultural world that is now capable of producing very wealthy and suicidal terrorists.
There's a good reason for the above mentioned figure... While I agree that there's a lot of useful information on the net, there's also a lot of crap.
Any intelligence agency looking to filter out the 99.9% of nonsense that's out there to glean the remaining .01% of useful information faces an incredible challenge. That's not to say that it's impossible, just very, very difficult, time-consuming, and expensive. For every real threat being posted on the net, there are tens of thousands of harmless, steam-blowing rants posted. And how do you decipher between the two? Do we now get into investigating every idle threat someone posts on a bb, or in a chat channel? The sheer scope of this project would daunt even the most dedicated Government sanctioned snoop.
Just as an example, sift through the comments of a /. article at -1, and you're guaranteed to find at least one or two flame-ridden rants about god knows what. Or look at your own past history. How many 'harmless' comments have you made about the stupidity of this or that idea, or how you'd like to kill that person for doing this? You know its harmless. Anyone who knows you probably thinks the same. But how does someone completely outside of your community know?
The article does make a few valid points, however:
Shocking as it may seem, our intelligence community does not routinely strive to identify the top people in the world (not just Americans) on the various topics of concern -- from terrorism to the environment to human trafficking to corruption to disease and public health -- with the result that our analysis tends to be shallow and incestuous, relying on the same consultants again and again.
I think just about anyone who lives outside the US looking in (as I do) would agree with this statement; one has only to observe the lack of knowledge American citizens display with regards to the rest of the world to see that this attitude is quite widespread, and probably does affect intelligence gathering. Raise your hand anyone who's seen the (Canadian) 22 minutes special "Talking to Americans". It's rather depressing actually, to think that so many people, including prominant politicians, could believe that Canada works on a 20 hour clock, or that we're going to change the country's name to Chicago (I'm not exaggerating either... quite a few people were taken in by this).
The Recommended Open Source Initiatives proposed in the article are interesting, though idealistic. One example: Digital History Project ($5M) to digitize and translate key Islamic, Chinese, and other foreign language historical, political, economic, cultural, social, and technical materials.. Having been involved in translation projects (French to English and vice versa) myself, I think he has seriously underestimated how much this would cost..Translation is an incredibly difficult and time-consuming activity; it's not a simple matter of babelfishing an article. Localized phrases and slang do not translate well from one language to another.
Before you can even begin to sift through the plethora of information, you'll need people that are very net and tech savvy. Combining tech skills with those of an intelligence agent is just the beginning. I won't even go into the thorny privacy issues that could be touched on here... that's just a political bomb waiting to go off.
Re:Interesting premise, but realisable? (Score:2, Insightful)
And raise your hand if you ever saw Jay Leno do his 'man on the street' skits? Not all of us are as daft as the media would have you think. Granted there are plenty of luddites among us, but how much footage DONT you see in that 22 minute special? My guess is they went for the dopes just like Jay does. It's more entertaining and you're more likely to watch to see just how silly some people are. (Unfortunately, that can include politicians who don't have to be smart, just charismatic.)
Not sure ... (Score:2, Insightful)
"Open Source" (Score:2, Insightful)
I mean, it's kind of intresting, I guess. But it dosn't really have anything to do with the OSS "movement" or anything. It certanly isn't some fallout from the "revolution".
Steele has more than a clue (Score:2, Insightful)
Unlike most of the rest of the Intelligence Community, he is open to us and our views.
The term "Open Source" has had a meaning in the Intelligence field long before it came into vogue as a software development movement - RDS makes an analogy - that open intelligence sources and methods are more trustworthy (than closed sources) for the same reasons that open source programs are.
Too easy to inject false information (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not saying that Open Source Intelligence is a bad thing; just that the gullibility index of interpreters will be a major fact into how useful it becomes.
Net-based OSI (Score:2, Informative)
Too risky (3 days of the condor) (Score:2)
Also, given that the bookish chaps have to resort to phone phreaking and even kidnapping to thwart Max von Sydow, OS int would put homeland security at risk.
Nope, it's just to dangerous to risk.
Hmm (Score:2, Insightful)
And the intelligence agencies ignored them.
That may be because intelligence agencies have been in the business of collecting intelligence for a few hundred years. And the congressional committee has never been in the business of collecting intelligence. So maybe, and I may be grasping at straws here, but, maybe, the cia knows more about collecting intelligence than a reporter for time magazine. (audience gasps)
Before you discard my opinion, what do you think about congressional committees when they discuss the Harmful Effects of Video Games? Or the horrors of Pirated Music? Just because a few congresspersons decide the spooks don't know what they're doing doesn't mean that the congresspersons were right.
I should also note that I met somebody once whose job was to work for the CIA and search the internet. I'm sure they are using osi to the degree they feel necessary.
Proof you're an idiot and/or flamer (Score:2)
1. The CIA, including its precursors, has only existed since WWII.
2. It's the JOB of our elected congressional officials to oversee & regulate the functions of ALL the government, including the intelligence agencies. You don't have to be a veteran spook to see a waste when the CIA spends tens of thousands of dollars for information that's published in some Pakistani daily paper.
You met someone once whose job it was to search the net for the CIA? Congratulations.
OSI is nothing new (Score:4, Informative)
As for not translating korean stuff, well I remember these were unclassfied, if you can ever track down some of the north korean radio transcripts, they are worth a laguh and a look into the North Korean mindset.
While open source intelligence may not get the attention it deserves at the highest levels, it isn't as badly neglected as this article seems to think.
I'm not sure how detailed I can legally get on this point, so I'll be general. Some of this reluctance to use false sources may be due to false alarms such things have caused in the past. Some of our enemies will manipulate the open sources in an attempt to cause us to react to a perceived threat. It worked for us in WWII with the whole landing at Calais deal, and worked against us recently in the middle east(thats the bit I can't be more specific on).
hyperbole alert (Score:3, Informative)
this is bunk
there are four levels of military maps the lowest is available openly 1:100000
the next layer 1:1000 is supposed to be opened but recent events will probably change that
layers go 1:100
and 1:10 in terms of coverage accuracy
The US has the world maps covered, as do the French, Russians, UK etc. most gov'ts sell and trade data (for a price) to most anyone with enough geld.
dgd
Open Internet Sources (Score:2, Informative)
The Drudge Report [drudgereport.com] - Hey, he links to the important and interesting stuff in the mainstream media and breaks the stuff they won't report. What's not to like?
Stratfor.com [stratfor.com] - Great, clean analysis that is hard to find elsewhere. Drawback - has one free article each day on their site; full access requires a subscription of $80-$120. Still cheaper than ignorance or Jane's [janes.com].
Debka.com [debka.com] - Provides interesting intel on the Middle-East from an Israeli perspective.
Anyone else have any favorite newshound/intel links?
double edged sword... (Score:4, Interesting)
Shocking as it may seem, our intelligence community does not routinely strive to identify the top people in the world (not just Americans) on the various topics
of concern - from terrorism to the environment
to human trafficking to corruption to disease
and public health - with the result that our
analysis tends to be shallow and incestuous,
relying on the same consultants again and
again.
I am not sure how many of you have looked into getting a clearance. There are some serious ethical choices that you need to make in order to get one. Some of these include:
1. Restricted travel.
2. Not being able to associate freely with non US citizens.
3. (probably the most important for the academic types). Depending on what clearence you get and from which agency anything that you go to publish will have to be peer reviewed by people in the intelligence community before it can be published.
THe reason that this is important is that the intelligence agencies can not just talk to any Tom, DIck or Harry about somethings. Many of the academic leaders can not justify the restrictions on personal freedom, so they choose not to work in the intelligence community.
It would be great for them to pull resources off of everybody but, they are limited to what they can talk about and it would be easier for those opposed to our interests to learn what we are up to.
I agree that it would be great to be able to do this but there are several things that need to be resolved before hand.
Re:double edged sword... (Score:3, Interesting)
1. Restricted travel.
Not exactly... this depends on your position and agency, and exactly what info you have access to. Most of the time, it just means you have to report to your unit/companies security manager for a briefing and debriefing prior to departure and on return.
2. Not being able to associate freely with non US citizens.
Somewhat accurate. You must report initial contact to your security manager, who will then give guidelines on further reporting. I was able to converse freely with a girl in Sarajevo when NATO was bombing there a couple years ago, and I held a Top Secret clearance with SCI access(the highest clearance you can know about without having... strong rumours of higher clearances abound). My guidelines were simple- As long as she didn't pump me for info about battle plans and the like, no need for further reporting on the contact.
3. (probably the most important for the academic types). Depending on what clearence you get and from which agency anything that you go to publish will have to be peer reviewed by people in the intelligence community before it can be published.
YEs this is true... But, so far as I understand the regs at least in the Department of the Nany, its only if the work involves information you worked on while holding the clearance.
Which means I've broken that rule, oh only about two or three times or more every time slashdot has posted something about US Intelligence...
THe reason that this is important is that the intelligence agencies can not just talk to any Tom, DIck or Harry about somethings. Many of the academic leaders can not justify the restrictions on personal freedom, so they choose not to work in the intelligence community.
THis is irrelevant. All they have to do is pull a professor of arabian studies or some such in to brief their analysts. The analysts may bitch about having to sanitize(remove classified information from) the briefing area, but it doesn't require giving the professor a clearance.
The Atlantic Monthly covered this a month ago. (Score:2, Informative)
And why should anyone be surprised that they're using common sense _as well as_ your spare CPU cycles to find out what's going on outside those smoked-glass windows?
From the Department of Redundancy Department... (Score:2, Funny)
"Open Source Intelligence"
Open Source Intel Collective website (Score:2)
Check out it out here: http://osi.theofficersclub.com/
Open Source Intelligence -- ? (Score:5, Insightful)
I first read the article on Sunday afternoon. It caught my attention because, like many on /., I made the right associations and tried to match "intelligence" with "open source" in the espionage sense. I was disappointed after reading 2/3 of the article, and didn't finish it. This was written by someone mostly grandstanding. The author focused too much on gathering data from all sources without giving enough thought to interpretation of those data.
I had the privilege (misfortune?) to work with a few intelligence types. When you talk to the people in the field, not to the public figures, public affairs wags, or the pundits, you will almost universally get the same two answers, rated in order of importance:
The open intelligence article advocates only points 2 and 3, and barely touches on 1. Just like in coding, where the problem is not writing code but writing code that does something useful, intelligence is all about interpreting the data so that policy and actions may be appropriately channeled.
Dr. Ray S. Cline (former deputy director, CIA; look him up) once said that the world needed fewer spies and more critical thinking (I'm paraphrasing here a bit). Everyday disasters and attacks that could have been prevented still happen because there are too many toys and budgets and bureacratic fiefdoms to protect and there aren't enough ears who understand the bad guys' language, not enough cooperation between three-letter agencies, and not enough brains focused on making sense of the data gathered through various channels.
Thus, while part of the problem is gathering data, making sense of it is what will prevent another catastrophe like the terrorist attacks last September.
EIt all comes down to manpower (Score:2, Funny)
today's intel community suffers from a lack of qualified individuals who are able to successfully staff locations around the world. Identifying openly available sources of information is a great idea, but we've got to get the people in there to do it.
Great Book On NSA (Score:2)
OSINT = Competitive Intelligence. (Score:2)
LL
----
Times flies even when you're not having fun.
Shows how much Carnivore is a straw man... (Score:2)
I'm sure I'll get marked as Flamebait - this going against the Slashdot communities consensus and all - but this really shows how much the objections to Carnivore are a straw man.
If the U.S. intelligence and law enforcement communities can't even keep up with publically available information posted on the web, how the hell are they going to find time to snoop through people's encrypted porn? (Or whatever the hell else they actually bother to encrypt.)
Face it, it takes a hell of a lot to get an FBI agent to bother a judge about your private files.
Or, as Dennis Miller put it: "The biggest conspiracy is that there is no conspiracy. Nobody is out to get you. Nobody gives a shit whether you live or die. There, feel better now?"
Re:hmmm (Score:2)
Re:hmmm (Score:2)
Re:hmmm (Score:2)